As they resumed their seats Claudia and Andee opened their tablets to the notes they’d made while preparing for today. During the break they’d added to them, but Marcy didn’t need any prompts to guide her through the next few minutes. She knew what she wanted to say, and had informed the others while they were outside, so after Andee had spoken a few words to set them back on course, Marcy began her piece, speaking quietly yet clearly.

“It’s been explained to us,” she said to the top of Archie’s head, bowed, she understood, in shame, “that we can take this opportunity to tell you how your actions have impacted our lives. We can go into as much detail as we like about how the fire and my injuries have made us feel as individuals and as a family, and about how afraid we’ve been and remain because of the person we believe to be behind what you did.” She paused, allowing her allusion to Marcus to sink in, and to see if Archie might respond.

When he didn’t, she continued. “I will admit that a part of me—a strong part of me—has an almost constant need to express all the anger and hatred bottled up inside me, all the resentment and self-pity I feel about what’s happened to me, especially when I look in the mirror. It’s my own personal horror show, one I can never escape, and never will be able to. Somehow, I have to learn to live with it and it isn’t easy. I don’t talk about it with my family, because I don’t want my negative feelings spilling over them and turning our lives into a perpetual struggle with bitterness and spite. I do discuss it with my therapist, and together we’re working on helping me get to a better and calmer place. He was—is—fully supportive of my decision to meet with you, and he’s advised me not to hold back. I really didn’t think I would, but after listening to you I’ve decided that you already feel bad enough about what you did and making you feel worse isn’t going to help any of us.”

As his head came up, she met his confused and wary expression with one of cool compassion. She’d meant it, they didn’t need to make him squirm with guilt and shame—he appeared to be doing that without any help—and she certainly didn’t need to indulge herself in a diatribe of self-pity. This meeting, as they’d been advised, must be about how they could go forward in a way that was going to benefit them all, and attacking him verbally and emotionally simply wasn’t going to achieve that.